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Creativity in label and bottle designs

Interested to know what your favorite bottle or label designs are on a wine. Thinking a little outside the box here, not just pretty and aesthetically pleasing but pushing the boundaries of what is 'expected' for a wine.

Thanks for the contribution, your bottle exmaple reminds me of modern art, the shape can be looked at in various ways, i like it!

The article thumbnail was indeed bottles with a paper wrap, I wanted to symbolize the hole "click here to uncover the bottles". When you delve further into the bottles you'll see some pretty awesome designs much like your example above! :)

I don't think you sound like a jerk, you don't have to visit the blog at all, but as you've taken the time to contribute to the thread feel free to give examples of bottle or label designs that have captured your attention.

The link was merely for examples should people wish to click it at their own will :)

Dunc, you are so much more an expert than I am on many things, especially European wine, but I have to correct that: Mouton Rotschild had a different artist do the label every year. Great site with all the labels, starting in 1945. In an amazing irony, Rotschild commissioned Picasso to do the label for the '73 wine, when M-R was officially classified as a first growth. Picasso died that year, but the winery released the wine with the art and the caption "En Hommage a Picasso 1881-1973." That was, by my research, the only year he did the label. Very old article on that label is here.

Having Picasso do it every year would have been almost as amazing as the roster that actually did it: Miro, Dali, Chagall, Braque, Kandinsky, Motherwell, Henry Moore. I'm hoping they get Ai Wei Wei on a label, but would China then ban the wine? That would be really amazing and gutsy of them.

Once in a while, I'll buy a wine mostly because the label caught my eye--but it wouldn't be enough on its own. For instance, I'd never buy a Malbec just because it had a nice label because I don't like Malbec. I've campaigned against castles on labels before, so I have my dislikes. And then there's the awkward moment when you are eating with a female co-worker and the wine (Barbera Da Vine) comes in a bottle with a pin up on the label.

I did not realise it was a different artist every year.I liked the site you linked to.I did not know that the good Baron also used the late Queen Mother and Prince Charles on his labels. That is why I like this site because you can learn so much

My boss' friend (I won't name him, but the school of business building at the University of Victoria is named for him, after a generous bequest), bought that entire vertical. I am looking forward to an occasion to view it. I'm sure he bought it mainly as an art collection, not for drinking :)

Speaking of expensive wines.. I just got an invite form Scarecrow wines, who have one of the most sought after cabs in the US. They have a second wine called Mt Etien, and only allow invitees to purchase 6 bottles max. But each bottle? $150 a pop. Far too expensive... God knows how much their Scarecrow Cab goes for...

I tend to like a substantial bottle. Nice and heavy. I like natural corks even though some of my favorite wines are screw tops from Australia. A cool bottle I came across a while back was Rockfish Zinfandel by Dan Cederquist. The picture below is not my own, but found by for me by google. I think I still have the bottle at home somewhere. It is heavy and nicely engraved with the images and logo while the rest is printed.

It's been said on many threads here that a small punt and a simple Bordeaux bottle would be a blessing for storage and shipping. Doesn't rule out good label design, although I tend to favor simple labels with clean designs. Maybe GregT will pick up the batphone and tell us how much engraving adds to the price of a bottle. Strikes me as pretty wasteful. Of course, I'm partial to P-J Belle Epoque and its hand painted label (the neck is a sticker, however). Like most, I first took notice of the bottle but the contents are what keep me hooked now.

I'm sure I'll make a million enemies here on this, but CO2 is a beneficial trace gas. Plants benefit greatly from increased CO2. Mercury from CFLs and Lithium from batteries is more harmful.

The extra cost of shipping is a concern. I don't buy a wine for it's bottle, but I do appreciate a unique bottle design. Plus, it is annoying when a good bottle of wine won't fit easily in the shelves in my wine fridges.

I do really wish I could find a great daily drinker in a box. I have found some that are fine, but nothing that I really like.

"Trace gas?" Um, no. Beneficial? Up to a point if your sole purpose is to grow more vegetation. But the issue isn't whether liana or kudzu is going to grow faster. I really doubt that the Champagne growers would be going to this trouble--and I hear the same from winegrowers everywhere--if they weren't very concerned about global warming. Whether certain steps, like taxing CO2 emissions, cap and trade, or what have you, are the right ones is subject to debate. But the overwhelming consensus is that anthropogenic warming from higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (plus methane, which is even worse) is cause for concern and will have repercussions in the wine business and elsewhere in agriculture, and generally in human settlement.

Yes, mercury is very dangerous in small amounts, and burning coal that contains it is another reason to change our ways. But that's not really the issue you are discussing.

I'm not your "enemy," --I think that's a way for some folks to avoid confronting facts-- but I have to say that it's disheartening that these kinds of facile, illogical statements continue to be made. We can debate about what, if anything, to do about CO2 concentrations, but those comments strike me as silly and diversionary.

Yes, I knew that answer, so I DQ'ed myself. I forgot the picture of J. Fox (great name!) was from that thread, and I went searching for it elsewhere! I think somewhere Mike Smith has a picture of himself with Gretzky, but I could be wrong.

VV, where is that from? It's great. If you are going to do a goofy label, go all the way. But who the heck grows Dornfelder? Oh, wait, it's the Loosen Bros of Germany. Funny.